Act I: The Protomen
by Tundrahawk
Summary: I. 'No one was left who could remember how it had happened. How the world had fallen into darkness. At least no one would would do anything. No one who would oppose the robots. No one who would challenge their power. Or so Doctor Wily believed...'


I: Hope Rides Alone

The crackling fire barely lit up the old man's face. And he began telling the story quietly, in a barely audible voice.

'_No one was left who could remember how it had happened. How the world had fallen into darkness. At least no one who would do anything…_'

A shadow passed, and the group hunched closer to the flames. Guiltily bowed their heads. But the metal thing clanked by without stopping. Quiet humans were good humans, and they were all the same.

'_No one who would oppose the robots. No one who would challenge their power._'

The man resumed, and he let the barest of smiles slip into his eyes.

'_Or so Doctor Wily believed…_'

* * *

From the distance, the city seemed like a miracle. It swarmed across the horizon, pulsating, constantly pulsating with light. Red lights, green lights, white lights, white lights. It was a miracle of the industry. A miracle of efficiency. A miracle of production. Foreigners often called it a brilliant and bright city. They thought it the crown jewel of the land.

But as one drew closer, the buildings of the city rushed closer and closer, swarmed closer and closer, crashed together in the mad rush of the city center. Metal overlords patrolled the streets, herding crowds of workers along. From the ground, skyscrapers rose. From the ground, the sky was constantly veiled by a smokescreen, belched forth from the factory's stacks.

Here the housing district. Block upon block populated by high-rise buildings. Tenements crumbling, stained black by soot. And a young girl, making her way through column upon column of these identical buildings. A young girl who stopped in front of one of these without hesitation. Tilted her head up briefly, searching for a star in the night sky above. She climbed the stairway. Stopping every once in a while to greet a friend. A cat, a human too young or old or sick for working. A dog that followed her. Up, she climbed. To the eighteenth floor… nineteenth…

On the twentieth floor of this run-down tenement building, twenty stories above the dark streets of this city, Doctor Light lived. An eccentric man. A brilliant man. His neighbors called him a loner, a thinker, a man of ideas. Ideas forbidden in Wily's society.

And yet they continued to bring him food. Like this young girl here; she knocked timidly at the door of the Doctor. No one answered, so she pushed the door open and cautiously crept inside.

Familiar sounds greeted her. The sounds of welding, the sounds of hammering, sounds of creating. An intermittent light flickering from the otherwise dark flat, from beneath the doorway of a closed door at the edge of the floor. The windows had been boarded up, blocked up; every precaution had been taken to hide the secrets of this room from the robots that lurked outside. Yet the girl made her way surely through the darkness. She pushed open the second door.

'Roll? Is that you?'

The noises of the workshop abruptly stopped. A white-haired man bent over the table, plasma cutter in his hand, slowly straightened himself. He lifted the visor on his head to reveal weary, blue eyes.

He was not an old man, they said, but his thoughts and memories had mercilessly aged him. The Doctor. His head was full of ideas forbidden. Forbidden by the society for which he worked, the society in which he lived.

The society that he would set free.

The Doctor exchanged a few words with the girl. She handed him a package—full of food and parts. Machine parts from the factories. Stolen with the best intentions. Rarely useful, but the Doctor was unable, or perhaps didn't have the heart to persuade the workers in this tenement block otherwise.

This was the only freedom he allowed himself during these endless days. And after these few moments he smiled at her and she turned and let him be. He listened to the door close. Waited for her steps to fade. Then bent over his work again.

And so Light worked. Worked all day in the factories, worked far into the night, when the watchful eyes of Wily's robots weren't upon him. He'd set his skillful hands to the task of creating a device to bring about a change, to create a machine to bring freedom, to create a man to save the world.

Hundreds of times, the girl stops before this tenement building. Hundreds of nights. Later and later she comes, as she is drafted into the factories and she must work. But she always comes. Every night. Carrying her package upwards, up to the Doctor. And as she grows older, she sees more. She talks more, tells the Doctor of her life, pleads with the Doctor. To preserve himself, to think of his health, to sleep, to sleep. But she never sees him sleep. Thinner and thinner he grows. Older and older they both grow.

Twelve years Light worked, and on a cold night in the year 200X, Protoman was born.

The girl and the Doctor both stood before him when he opened his eyes. Eyes that shone like a robot, but with the soul of a brave man who had died long ago. A man who had almost been like the Doctor's son. A perfect man, reincarnated as an unbeatable machine, hell-bent on destroying any evil standing between man and freedom. Built for one purpose and one purpose only. To destroy Wily's army of evil robots.

He slips a visor over his eyes. He ties a scarf round his neck.

Ready, willing, prepared to fight.

* * *

A scream shakes the streets of the city. A roar, a shout, a battle cry. The streets, the arteries of this city are filled to the bursting point. With men, woman, children, people, people, people. And at their head, their savior in red armor; he rallies them with a cry. They crowd together, flow through the city, flood out of the city toward a superstructure rising up in the east. The master factory, the fortress. Its façade mimicking the smile of a skull.

And at the gates, a single figure stands alone. In the lights of the fortress, he seems crafted out of the shadow alone. Perfectly still, he waits.

The crowd stops short at the edge of the field that spread before the fortress's gates. Only Protoman rushes forward to meet Wily. He carries a shield scavenged from one of the city robots, a shield engraved with a blessing from the Doctor, a shield that says first and foremost, HOPE.

A bare ten meters from the fortress. A crash of metal destroyed the silence. The field was suddenly flooded with light. As if Doctor Wily wanted them all to see. A fearsome army of robots, legion upon legion pouring out of the fortress gates. One by one, their commanders stepped forward.

Cutman. Gutsman. Elecman. Bombman. Fireman. Iceman.

_ATTACK!_

The violence was cruel, surreal. The robots pushed Protoman back. Metal screeched against metal, metal rose to a deafening pitch, a pitch beyond human comprehension and yet that still seared the mind. The crowd reacted instinctively. Hands covered ears. Mothers covered the eyes of terrified children. Robots screeched almost humanly as they fell.

Time and time again, Protoman was submerged in the ocean of robots. A red spot buried in a mass of grey. Only to burst free seconds later, in catalyst of metal limbs, sparking corpses, oil-blood that shimmers in the electric light.

His blows were quick and precise. Dealing death without remorse, without hesitation. He plunged into the sea of robots over and over, each time flying through them and leaving a crater of desolation in his wake.

And yet the fight was still unbalanced. The robots continued to pour from the fortress gates. Protoman's scarf became stained red from the oil, from his own wounds, gold cloth turning the color of his dented helmet. His visor cracked. Exposing one of his glowing eyes. His shield rusted red. Its message all but obscured. And yet there are still so many robot, one against so many. Protoman continued to fight. Without fear of pain. Without fear of death. Although it was inevitable.

The men kept their distance at the edge of the field. Straining to see every crushing blow through the smoke that surrounded the battlefield. Not one of them moved.

The din stopped abruptly.

Unsettlingly.

And as the smoke cleared, the sight was revealed unto them. Wily rose above the countless robots remaining. Protoman was wounded, a deep slash across his chest, gasping for air. His life's blood running out. His right arm barely hanging by a thread. The other clutched onto his shield, brought it to bear in front of him. Low on energy. He struggled to remain standing. Wily ordered the final attack.

_The death of Protoman._

The robots rushed forward. Protoman braced himself.

The crowd did nothing. They had gathered there to watch him fall, to watch their hopes destroyed. They watched them beat him, they watched them break him. And yet Protoman man still continued to fight. He fought and he fought… until his eyes went dark…

Protoman's shield caved in, nearly split in two and was flung from his side. His last defense deployed. The robots dragged him under for the final time.

Not a man among the crowd would let himself be heard. But from the crowd, from their collective fear, arose these broken words:

_We are the dead... We are the dead..._

What have we done?  
_We are the dead._

What will we do?  
_We are the dead._

Where will we turn?  
_We are the dead._

Is there nothing we can do?  
_We are the dead._

How did it come to this?  
_We are the dead._

How did we go so wrong?  
_We are the dead._

Nothing was left of Protoman, save for his helmet and his shield. The crowd gathered around these. But only once the robots had cleared the field, re-entering Wily's fortress, not even bothering to raise a claw against them. The lost people. The broken people. They looked at the remains of Protoman with bowed heads.

_We are the dead._

* * *

Lyrics from _The Protomen  
_Cover by Templarking (deviantart)_  
_


End file.
